Strange Lands
by pyrochicks
Summary: It's their fifth year and the usual gang meets a girl with an attitude problem. But she's got a good reason to act like that.


"Did you hear of that new transfer student

Disclaimer: Jordan is of our creation, but J. K. Rowling owns everything else.

A/N: This fic was started a while ago, but it was put on hold when we couldn't think of where to take it. Now, it's being posted to see what all of you lovely readers think about it. If you think it's worth the effort of completing, please review and let us know. Also, any ideas on what to do next would be much appreciated.

Strange Land

"Did you hear of that new transfer student? He's supposed to be really rich," a fifth year girl asked another.

"And father said he was American," the other girl replied, both girls squealed and ran off to board the train.

Behind them, a plain girl with dark blond hair frowned the two girls. Why was it so hard for people to get her gender right? Jordan was a girl's name too.

She looked up at the darkening sky and then around Platform 9 ¾ at all the students she would be spending the rest of her schooling years with. What an odd bunch they were. She took one more deep breath and long look at the scarlet steam engine bound for Hogwarts and boarded. She just knew she would hate it. 

Walking through the train she saw many groups of laughing kids, varying in ages and excited to get back to school. She wasn't very fond of the idea of homework, but it would be a relief to bury herself in her schoolwork.

She settled in one of the compartments near the rear of the train and opened her mind to a good book. Just as she was reaching the good part in the book, she heard a number of footsteps and voices in the hall coming closer.

__

Don't come in here please, she thought as she closed her eyes in anticipation and dread.

As her luck would have it, the door opened to three students who looked about her age. One girl and two boys, one looked vaguely familiar with black hair and green eyes with glasses but she couldn't place him at the moment. The girl was short, as least against the two tall boys, with long frizzy brown hair. And the last boy was tall and lanky with bright red hair. 

"Are these seats taken?" the girl asked politely.

She shook her head and went back to her book as she sat down. With all the noise they made as they were getting comfortable, she glanced out the window. They had started moving and it was starting to rain.

With all the distraction, she placed her book away and just stared out the window, hoping they would just forget she was there. No such luck.

"You must be the new transfer student my parents were talking about," the red haired boy looked at her. She sat there, unsure and unwilling to reply.

"I'm Hermione Granger, a prefect, and this is Ron Weasley and Harry Potter," the girl looked proud of her badge as she introduced them.

Jordan just sat there, not amused and still not willing to talk. When they realized she was ignoring them, Harry prompted for her name.

"Jordan," she said reluctantly.

"Jordan…Jordan what?" he persisted.

"Jordan Riley," she said bluntly.

"So did you go to Deacon Academy in America? I've heard so much about it and I have so many questions for you…" Hermione went into a frenzy. Jordan just stared at her weirdly and Ron cut in thankfully.

"Slow down Hermione, one question at a time," Ron cut into her monologue of questions. 

Hermione shot a look at Ron but did what he suggested. "So I assume you went to Deacon Academy, what year are you?

"5th year."

Hermione looked for more but didn't get any. "Ok, so why are you transferring?"

"Well you know, that's what I do for fun. I uproot my whole life and move across the world for no reason." Jordan rolled her eyes. She _really_ didn't want to tell her life story to a bunch of people she that just met.

The room went quiet and the others looked at each other cautiously. They considered pursuing it but decided to just engage in their own conversation.

That's what happened, Jordan listened to their boring conversation the whole ride there. They spoke cautiously and were obviously coding their conversation so that Jordan didn't understand it. She shrugged and went back to her book, tuning them out the best she could.

The most exciting time of the trip was when a very pale, tall boy and two goons came to visit the others. Through their conversation, she learned his name was Malfoy.

"What do you want Malfoy?" Ron hissed.

"I heard the new transfer student was down here at this end of the train and I wanted to meet him," he looked at them as though they were stupid.

"You mean corrupt him," Ron spat back.

"Shut your hole Weasley, besides I heard your…" Malfoy started but Jordan interrupted.

At this point she was tired of people getting her sex mixed up and their pointless conversations over what seemed to be trivial.

"Her!" she shouted over them.

They all turned to look at her, "The transfer student? Is a her, not a him, but a her. I am her, so get it right."

Ron stifled a laugh, "Yeah, Malfoy, get it right."

"Weasley, my father…" Malfoy started again only to be interrupted again.

"Go out into the hall if you're going to continue this please!" she said, exasperated.

"Zip it American, if my father…" again he couldn't finish.

"I don't care about your father, you obviously have no balls to keep running back to daddy and I don't want to hear about it." She kept calm, or at least outwardly she was calm.

Malfoy looked at her, at a loss for words, his face darkened and with a scowl he retreated out of the compartment with his goons in tow.

The other three looked at her in amazement and shock, but she didn't notice because she had once again turned back to her book. They exchanged a curious look before lapsing back into silence. After her outburst they sure as hell weren't going to talk.

Finally, after what seemed like forever for Jordan, the Hogwarts Express pulled into Hogsmeade station. Jordan blew past the others, but they caught up to her and she was forced to ride in a carriage up to the castle with them. She entered the castle and was pulled aside immediately by a stern looking witch with her hair pulled into a tight bun. 

"Miss Riley? I am Professor McGonagall. Come with me." Jordan was led to the head table where Dumbledore was sitting. His face, which had been deep in thought, brightened at seeing her. Jordan's face remained passive as he greeted her warmly.

"Miss Riley, it is wonderful to have you with us. I hope your trip wasn't too tiresome." Jordan just shrugged and glanced nervously around the Hall. Dumbledore stood and waited for silence. 

"Hello students and welcome to another year at Hogwarts. We have with us a transfer student from America. Her name is Jordan Riley and she is in her fifth year. She will be with us for the next three years." There was a spattering of applause and lots of murmuring as the Sorting began. McGonagall motioned her forward and put on the hat that was handed to her. 

She was surprised when she heard a scratchy voice whispering in her ear, most likely the hat. "My, my, you are a moody one." Jordan frowned and it continued. "Maybe you should be in Slytherin. No, that wouldn't do. You would probably scare the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws." Underneath the brim of the hat, Jordan rolled her eyes. "Well, only one house left. Yes, you'll do well in GRYFFINDOR!" The sorting hat yelled the last word to the hall. 

A table erupted in cheers and she guessed that it was the Gryffindor table. She quickly set the hat down and hurried off to the table. Taking an empty seat at the end of the table. She ignored the inviting looks of most of the younger students. The feast began much to Jordan's delight. The munchies that she had on the train and before she left weren't much to go on. She stuffed herself plenty, at the same time, discouraging anyone from trying to make conversation. At the end of the feast, Dumbledore made some announcement that Jordan didn't pay attention to and they were dismissed to leave.

Jordan followed carefully, like a first year, behind the prefect, Hermione. She noted certain landmarks and how they moved so that she could remember the way back to the house. Finally they stepped in front of a portrait of a fat lady and Hermione said the password, which was "Finkleburg." _Odd_, she thought. That was the name of her Potions master at Deacon.

She didn't dwell on it, but instead hauled herself up to the girls' dormitory and saw her stuff already there by her bed. With out hesitation she plopped on her bed and was ready to sleep off her experiences.

But she wasn't able to do as she liked; she was awakened with the news Professor Dumbledore wanted to see her. Jordan was a bit surprised at this, since she thought they would meet at tomorrow. She followed quietly behind Professor McGonagall.

Up the marble staircase and past the gargoyle, she entered Dumbledore's office with an open mind. He might not be that bad, not like her old headmaster. Plus she did meet him once, and he seemed all right then too. The thoughts raced in her mind.

"Ah, Miss Riley. I can't tell you how pleased I am to see you again, although I'm terribly sorry about your parents," he spoke warmly towards her. She looked down at her feet, not really knowing how to respond. She shrugged it off and looked up.

"Sirius!" she exclaimed, surprised as she went to hug him. She was surprised she hadn't seen him when she first entered the room.

Sirius chuckled, "Don't tell me you're homesick already? I just saw you this morning."

"I know. But I'm not exactly used to this place. I'll be okay in about a week." She suddenly remembered something. "Hey! What are you doing here anyway? Aren't you supposed to be an escaped convict on the run?" She asked jokingly.

"I had business with the headmaster. I'm actually leaving right now. Owl me if you need anything, okay?" He touched her cheek and she nodded. Sirius was her father's cousin and after their death at the beginning of the summer, she had moved to England to live with him and Remus Lupin. He stepped back and transformed into a huge black dog. He turned and left the room, pausing to turn the door handle with his paws.

When he was gone, she turned back to Dumbledore with a blank face and took a seat in front of his large desk. 

"Jordan," he began, "I know that this has been a rough transition for you and I realize that you left behind a lot of friends at Deacon Academy. I just wanted to remind you that you can always talk to me if you have any problems adjusting. I knew both of your parents. I'm sure they wouldn't want you to dwell on their deaths. For right now though, you should get some sleep, classes start tomorrow." 

As she walked slowly back to Gryffindor, she was deep in thought but she would save it for her Journal.

"Finkleburg" she said, wrinkling her nose. The Fat Lady swung opened and she stepped into the common room and guided herself up to her bed.

She dressed for bed and grabbed her journal, quill, and invisible ink and she began to write.

__

Dear Journal, 

Well, here I am, at Hogwarts. I want to go home! It's not that bad, I mean, the castle's actually kinda cool, but the people… well let's just say they're different. Very different. Seriously, have these people ever heard of minding their own business? This one girl… man, I thought she was going to bust from asking questions! Her name's Hermione and she's a prefect. And she's one of Harry Potter's best friends. Sirius told me about her and Ron and Harry this summer. I have to admit, they sounded a lot cooler than they are. 'Course that might just be because I don't know them. But after that first impression, I'm not real anxious to. Ron and Harry were all right. They didn't say much to me. On the train, they talked constantly_ about quidditch. I mean, I like the sport, but don't they have anything better to talk about? And whenever they were talking to Hermione, they were talking about some guy named Snuffles. What a name. Anyways, Harry seemed to be pretty worried because he hadn't heard from him in a while. It was all very boring. And of course I could barely concentrate on my book because they were talking. Then this guy walks in with these too goons backing him up. Who needs bodyguards at a school? My first thought was that this guy must be an absolute wuss. Then I heard him talk and my suspicions were confirmed. He kept talking about what his _father_ would do. Well, I told him off and he left. After the feast, I got called to the headmaster's office and guess who was there. Sirius! He had to talk to Dumbledore about something and he wanted to say hi. Dumbledore gave me this speech about how if I needed to talk, I could always go to him and how my parents wouldn't want me to mourn forever. Come on, is this guy serious? Who would go to a teacher to talk about how unfair life is? And that bullshit about not dwelling on death? Well obviously! But come on, my parents were fucking _murdered!_ Well, it's late and I've got school tomorrow, unfortunately. Oh, by the way I'm in Gryffindor._

Love,

Jordan

She closed her journal and set down her quill. She got comfy and settled into a deep sleep. _Maybe Eos will bring a letter from Cessia,_ she thought drifting off into her dreams…

The day awoke early for Jordan and it took her a minute to realize where she was. For a moment, it seemed like the past, but it was ruined when Hermione came up.

"Hi Jordan, you'd better hurry up, breakfast is about to start," she smiled warmly at her, hoping to break through to the new girl.

"Okay" Jordan said simply and went into her own routine of getting ready. When she went down to the common room, she was relieved to find that Hermione hadn't waited for her. The girl was probably nice enough, but Jordan wasn't patient enough to break through the annoying shell. 

In the Great Hall, she once again grabbed a seat at the end of the table, away from anyone she recognized. She was passed a piece of parchment from some random third year. She realized it was her schedule and noticed that she had Charms first, followed by Herbology, and then Potions as the last class of the day. Her day would go from good to bad, to awful. She had heard from Remus and Sirius how terrible Professor Snape was. She hoped they were exaggerating. 

She saw Harry, Ron, and Hermione get up from the table and exit the hall. Jordan quickly scarfed down the rest of her eggs and followed them. She wasn't real anxious to become buddy-buddy with them, but she had to get to class somehow. She followed at a distance until she saw them enter a classroom. 

__

God, I hope I don't have to do this all week. They're going to think I'm stalking them or something. Jordan thought. She entered the classroom and took a seat in the back. Most of the class was there by now and she noticed they were all giving her curious glances. She hoped they wouldn't try to ask a bunch of questions. She didn't have the patience with ignorant people, but it wasn't their fault they were.

Charms was a little funny with tiny Professor Flitwick. She seemed about the same where everyone else was in that class; it was all just review anyway. In Herbology, she had to fight to keep awake, Professor Sprout spoke in a monotone and she had trouble concentrating on what types of Fungi where used to heal some obscure disease. It didn't really catch her interest.

Jordan followed quietly into the dungeon behind Harry, Hermione and Ron. They hadn't really paid that much attention to her and she was thankful to that, after all her teachers so far hadn't really given her any special attention. She felt cold air that hit her like a brick wall as soon as she stepped into the dungeon for potions. An eerie feeling swept over her as she could feel the potions master, Severus Snape's eyes fixed on her as she found a seat near the back of the class. The feeling was right, and so were Sirius and Remus. Snape's personality matched his dark looks and now she knew why he wanted the Dark Arts job so bad.

"So I see we have another celebrity with us," he hissed at her.

The class was quiet and Jordan said nothing as he took roll. She looked at the people from Slytherin and cringed, they looked like death eaters, some. And amongst them all was that tall pale kid, Malfoy, was his name. He sniggered at Ron and them before acting like an angel for Snape, who obviously favored his own house.

"Riley" he barked.

"What?" she asked, annoyed with his tone.

"You never talk back to me, a point from Gryffindor! Come up and be Potter's partner, two celebrities must be a pair" he slithered at her.

She kept her mouth shut and moved her seat. Harry gave her a sympathetic look, _not the look you should be giving me, I just lost us a point on the first day, _shethought dryly. 

They went through the steps of a potion Jordan recognized instantly but forced herself to pay attention so she wouldn't lose anymore house points. Finally he dismissed them to work and she put the potion together without even looking at the scroll of directions or ingredients.

Harry looked quizzically at her; "I take it you've done this one before?"

Jordan just kept her eyes on the cauldron and he pursued another question, "So what exactly did he mean 'two celebrities'?"

Jordan stopped, she knew that Snape's remark would take more effect on everyone's curiosity on her.

"Beats me." Jordan shrugged. It was a lame response but she wasn't going to cave in to the pressure.

Harry looked intently at her, "Oh." She knew he wasn't convinced but it was enough to shut him up and get back to his own cauldron.

She finished the potion and her cauldron was glowing the low green that it was supposed to. She looked around at others, Hermione was doing ok and Malfoy was getting praise for his, which wasn't all that great. 

Harry was doing everything fine until Snape was supervising him, he seemed to want to throw it at him, rather than make it into a potion. Jordan leaned over and helped him with his ingredients. He smiled weakly and continued.

"Riley! You are to _help_ your partner, not _do it for them_! Two points from Gryffindor and another for helping some one when theirs isn't correct either!" he snapped at her.

She looked at her cauldron, it was a deep black color and her jaw dropped. She knew she had done the potion perfectly. She looked over her shoulder and saw that Malfoy character was laughing quietly. She gave him a cool look and started to fix her potion.

"Don't worry, Snape hates me too" Harry whispered.

"I'm not worried" she replied hastily. When class was over, Jordan was out like a rocket, just wanting to get out of the Potions dungeon.

Meanwhile Ron and Hermione caught up with Harry as they left.

"So was she any different than on the train?" Ron asked.

"Nope, she's hiding something, I can't explain it but it's a feeling" Harry said.

"Well it does show up in her attitude, and she did lose us 4 points which over rides the few points I got from Professor Sprout for knowing about those species of Fungi," Hermione puffed.

"You know Snape was being hard on her Hermione, it wasn't her fault." Ron said in Jordan's defense.

Hermione huffed but relented. "Well she didn't deserve it when Malfoy put the extra flaxweed in her cauldron." 

"I didn't see that until he was on his way back to his seat, did you?" Harry asked. Both shook their heads.

"I hope she pays him back" Ron wished.

"She just might, I don't see her the type to take much from anyone." Harry pointed out.

They had reached the common room and she was nowhere in sight. 

"So what did Snape mean when he said 'there are two celebrities among us'?" Harry asked.

Ron didn't know, and Hermione just asked, "Well what did she say?"

"Nothing, as usual," he replied.

"That might be what she's hiding," Hermione said thoughtfully.

Both boys shrugged. "Well, I've got the quidditch meeting." Harry told them before heading upstairs.

"And I've got to start on that project Professor Flitwick was talking about," Hermione said.

"But that's not due 'til Halloween!" Ron exclaimed.

"So? Then I'll brush up in Defense, so I know what the new teacher will teach us. Strange Dumbledore didn't announce who it was," she said as she headed towards a corner table. Ron shrugged and turned to play chess with Seamus Finnigan, who was in the common room with Dean Thomas.

After zipping out of potions, Jordan headed to the library to open a good book, which was what she needed at the moment. After that last class, she was eager for some peace and quiet. Jordan absolutely _hated _Potions. And after last period, she was pretty sure that Potions hated her too. Well, the Potions _master_ anyway. She sat at a table in the corner farthest away from the door and quickly became immersed in her book. 

After about three hours, Jordan finally became aware of her stomach's growls and went down to the Great Hall. Again, she sat by her self, at the end of the long table, ignoring the invitations of Harry, Ron, and Hermione. She had barely picked up her fork, when she was interrupted by the bossy voice of Hermione. Jordan looked up to see her looking a bit peevish, the two boys looking a bit embarrassed. 

"Hello, I don't think you saw us, but we were inviting you to sit with us." Hermione said as she sat down. Harry and Ron shrugged at each other and sat on either side of her. Jordan looked up at them darkly.

"I saw you and I refuse the invitation." She said. "Goodbye." She said pointedly when they didn't get up. Finally, they left. As Harry was walking away, she heard him mutter to Ron, "You know, I think the Sorting Hat messed up on her. She _definitely_ should have been a Slytherin."

__

Well, not a Slytherin, but maybe a Ravenclaw. Maybe they would leave me alone. I'd 'scare' them off. Jordan thought wryly. 


End file.
